BC Storm Aftermath

[billybek]

Holy Hanna! The damage that was dealt to the Lower Mainland and the Island continues to pile up.
Hope that the many Pelicans in that area are OK.

Some of the more recent photos of the Coquihalla highway damage shown in the link below.

https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/351932/New-photos-of-devastation-on-Coquihalla-Highway

[recycled sixtie]

Yes it is unbelievable. So sorry for the loss of lives. The number has not been determined yet. Many livestock have perished too.

[dentist90]

Store shelves were cleared out within 24 hrs of the news. Bread, milk and fresh veggies are all gone due to panic shopping. This is in the interior where we still have access to Alberta supplies.
Hate people sometines. 😤

[masraum]

Wow. I had no idea. I hope any Pelicans up there are safe and secure.

I'd have expected any precipitation up there to be frozen this time of year, but I guess if this is near the ocean, that might keep things warm enough.

[billybek]

At one time they called these storms the "Pineapple Express", now they call them a Cyclone Bomb due to the way the barometric pressure falls in a short period of time.
This one was extreme! Shut down some of the pipelines for oil and nat gas going into the region too.
Not to make this political but Justin needs to mobilize the army to get the truck and rail traffic moving again on an emergency/temporary basis.
Will be the most costly insurance event in Canadian history, no doubt.

[upsscott]

We just had a cyclone bomb or whatever in NorCal a month ago. Over 6 inches of rain in 24 hours on my gauge at home. Hope you all stay safe up there eh……

[908/930]

It is quite a mess in the lower mainland, at least one person has perished and some still missing, more rain on the way and many areas still flooded, most if not all major highways have serious mudslide damage, railway tracks out, mudslides were washing cars from the highway. Large dairy farms were flooded with livestock still in the barns. On Vancouver Island the main highway north of Victoria will be out for a while, on the news there was pictures of the two northbound lanes with about 3 feet of water flowing down it. I was impressed by Darrel Jones the president of a large grocery chain telling the people trapped in small towns not to not panic stocking up, and said he would restock the stores using helicopter if required.

Masraum fyi, It is normally about 5c or 41f in the winter around here, it does go below 0c but not for long, this is the Canadian version of Hawaii, LOL. Different once you go up the mountains, temp down .7 deg c for every 100m up.

[LWJ]

Yes. I was North of Seattle Sunday seeing family. Lots of rain.

Some of the people we didn’t see had severe flooding.

It was dry all day in Portland.

Absolutely tragic.

[GothingNC]

Wow, just deveasting , looks like it will be a long hard road to recovery :-(

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-flood-watch-road-closures-1.6249154

[maxnine11]

[bickyd]

We used the have a thing called a forest to hold the soil and water. the fires and logging have fixed that.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by billybek

Holy Hanna! The damage that was dealt to the Lower Mainland and the Island continues to pile up.
Hope that the many Pelicans in that area are OK.

Some of the more recent photos of the Coquihalla highway damage shown in the link below.

https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/351932/New-photos-of-devastation-on-Coquihalla-Highway

I found a map of the region for context, looks like rough country, and even rougher now.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-floods-tuesday-update-1.6250367

[Jeff Alton]

In the lower mainland, it is predictable, and was predicted. The last massive flood in this area was in 1990 and has happened many times back to 1920 when the area was a LAKE before it got pumped out and reclaimed. ****ty situation, but not un expected. The Nooksack river that over flowed its banks flooded the area. That river is in a different country. Not the first time, or the last unless something gets done to contain the river within its banks.

The destruction of the other highways is different. HWY 5 will be a long time before it gets opened again. Remember please, it was a rush job for EXPO 86.... who knows the level of geotechnical engineering that went into it. Could have been the best available at the time or could have been compromised due to time constraints. We will never know..... HWY 3 area suffered the "Hope slide" many many years ago, the current HWY routing is around that slide. It is mountain terrain, not typical of all that many places in the world.

****ty situation from an epic rainstorm, absolutely. The events on the Duffy Lake road where people and cars got swept away is terrible and tragic.

It is great to hear the stories of people helping stranded folks, offering up their homes for shelter etc. Good stuff, humans behaving above what we come to expect in this day and age.

Hope the Gov't heeds warnings going forward and puts mitigation in to place before it happens again.

[Jeff Alton]

Originally Posted by dentist90

Store shelves were cleared out within 24 hrs of the news. Bread, milk and fresh veggies are all gone due to panic shopping. This is in the interior where we still have access to Alberta supplies.
Hate people sometines. ��

This is not everywhere. Went grocery shopping today here in Langley, all was good. I am sure it will turn into the same idiotic behavior we saw during Covid lockdowns mind you.... Idiots buying a years supply of **** tickets etc....

Cheers

[Bill Douglas]

Sadly... Get used to it. Climate change. Bigger high pressure systems and bigger low pressure systems mean stronger winds and substained rain for days not hours.

[LWJ]

Yes. I have family near the Nooksack. Awful.

[Skip Newsom]

I too hope our neighbors to the North can recover, an insane amount of rain in nothing flat.
A slight weather pattern change would have had this area in dire straights.

I'm only 75 miles South of the Canadian border and we only had pretty minor flooding on the Stillaguamish river that drains the local mountain sides.
The Skagit was a whole different deal, we had a good load of snow in the North Cascades above 4'000' just prior to the warm up and "atmospheric river" coming right at us from the tropics.
Mount Vernon area got hit pretty hard, but managed it well.

Seattle City Light had already begun to draw down Ross reservoir, it was at 1588' and within 24 hours it went to full pool at 1602' that's 14' of water in a 23 mile long lake- I would have loved to see some of the water falls up there!
Looks like the spillways were in use for a bit too, I've never seen them used in over 40 years of visiting and camping up there.

I believe that saved the downstream communities a much worse outcome.

Screen shot of Ross reservoir over the last several days:

[Jeff Alton]

t

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

Sadly... Get used to it. Climate change. Bigger high pressure systems and bigger low pressure systems mean stronger winds and substained rain for days not hours.

Yes, sure.

Happens every 30 or so years, but the media won't mention it as it does not fit well the climate change narrative....


Cheers

[Bill Douglas]

I'm sure you'll be fine Jeff. It's all BS.

[billybek]

I saw yesterday that a group of Canadian military engineers from the Edmonton area joined the effort to get the situation stabilized in the western BC interior. Other groups from the military have been building levees and performing dike repairs.
Hopefully the rail service is restored, highway 3 is opened to travel and the pipelines integrity is checked and shipment of product to the area is restored.

Lets keep this PARF free please.

Looks like another dump of rain/snow heading for BC over the next few days. Fingers crossed that there are not more problems because of this...